Many of us are by now familiar with the Browse Endlessly Plan, a system in which scrolling knows no end and absolutely nothing of interest populates no matter how many times you refresh or toggle between genres. Netflix may have something close to an answer for it.
Android Police reported Thursday that the streaming platform’s Android app is testing a feature to cue up a “Random Episode” of a given series with an in-app shuffle icon. The company confirmed to Gizmodo that it is indeed currently testing the tool, which appears to be exclusive to Android for now.
“We are testing the ability for members to play a random episode from different TV series on the Android mobile app,” a Netflix spokesperson told Gizmodo in a statement by email. “These tests typically vary in length of time and by region, and may not become permanent.”
There are some immediate drawbacks that come to mind with this application for a series. For those who aren’t familiar with a show’s plot or characters, the system seems like it could definitely be a bit confusing. On the other hand, for people who are, it also seems not too unlike starting a book on a random page in somewhere in middle.
However, as TechCrunch noted, this feature does mimic something closer to the tradition TV-viewing experience, where reruns of popular series are assured pretty much any time of day.
Also, per a screengrab via Android Police, several of the shows listed under this option include Arrested Development, The Office, and Our Planet, individual episodes of which you could reasonably enjoy without spoiling the series. If this is the kind of media to which this feature is limited, this application definitely makes sense.
But what do we think? Shuffle mode or endless scrolling? Let us know down below.